- Ashley Kalagian Blunt: a candle – bird? – in the wind
- Blue “sparrow” for Zana Fraillon
- Arigato to Danie Ware
- Dumplings bring oceans of joy: thanks to Wai Chim
- Gumboots and a bottle pouring an ocean: thank you Tabitha Bird
- A monster of a job earns a monster thank you to Cass Moriarty
- ‘The Wave’ inspired Imbi Neeme’s book cover, which inspired this card
- Gabrielle Tozer: thank you from DMZ
- Anna Whateley: such a normal selfie (card)
- Rob McDonald lives with rainbows
- Kelly Van Nelson lives in Graffiti Lane 😉
- An experimental card for Kelly Morton
- Simon Cleary confronted with a four-legged war artist: “Who’s (not) a good boy then?”
- Favel Parrett: Past the Shallows
- I had a whale of a time interviewing Elizabeth Knox
- Carly Findlay: a thank you party! early January 2020
Imbi Neeme contributed to the Authors For Fireys fundraiser in January 2020. Emily Gale and Nova Wheetman organized this mammoth undertaking. They raised $513,149 to support firefighters and to help Australia’s bushfire survivors.
The entire list of original Authors For Fireys series of interviews and guest blogs are here. The ‘thank you’ posts, each of which include my cardmaking efforts, are here.
Meet Imbi Neeme
My name is Imbi Neeme and I am a recovering blogger, an impending novelist and a compulsive short story writer. The Spill, my book, won the Penguin Literary Prize in 2019 and will be published with Penguin Random House Australia in June 2020.
Since I’m a relatively unknown quantity whose book’s publication date is still four and a half months away, I figured a signed copy of my book would only attract bids from my mum. The same applies to any offer I could make as a mentor or assessor of manuscripts. Also, I’m not really sure how much my mum would let me mentor her, anyway.
So I thought about what I could offer that could be of actual value to someone unrelated to me. And I came up with encouragement.
It’s been the encouragement of my friends and fellow writers that kept me going while I was writing in the shadows. And it was that same encouragement which sustained me during those years I was putting my work out there and getting knocked back by publishers, agents and unpublished manuscript prizes.
Even now, as I move tentatively towards publication, it is the people around me that help stay the course, my head held high.
So let me be your personal cheerleader in 2020 in the form of twelve postcards (one per month). Let my gentle words of encouragement buoy you. I hope my handwriting quietly pleases you.
And let all the money that is raised by #AuthorsForFireys truly help those devastated by these terrible fires.
WEBSITE LINK: http://imbineeme.com
Dark Matter Zine says thank you
I am a novice card maker but I made the pictured card. This is a thank you to Imbi Neeme for appearing as a guest on Dark Matter Zine and for supporting Australia’s firefighters.
About the card
I had more cards than authors to send them to by this stage but after taking one look at Imbi’s book cover I had to change direction.
The Japanese print ‘The Wave’ made quite an impression on me and Imbi’s book cover evokes this classic art work. I used a die that references ‘The Wave’ for part of the background and tried to work in a few other elements, like a similar sky color. That felt unfinished. So a cute cat in a kimono made a fun finishing touch.
“Wake from death and return to life”
I thought it’d be fun to finish with a Japanese saying and Google was my friend. I found this:
起死回生
Translation: “Wake from death and return to life”
Meaning: To take a bad or desperate situation and turn it into a successful one.
We’re currently in a desperate situation; may we wake up, act wisely, find joy where we can while we’re acting wisely, and turn this tragedy into the saving of our societies and our planet.
Best,
Nalini
